The history of the teaching of human female inferiority in Darwinism

Summary

A review of the most prominent late 19th century writings by biologists
focusing on Charles Darwin reveals that a major plank of evolution theory was the
belief that women were intellectually and physically inferior to men. Female inferiority
was a logical conclusion of the natural selection worldview because men were exposed
to far greater selective pressures than women, especially in war, competition for
mates, food and clothing. Conversely, women were protected from evolutionary selection
by norms which dictated that men were to provide for and protect women and children.
Darwinists taught that as a result of this protection, natural selection operated
far more actively on males, producing male superiority in virtually all skill areas.
As a result, males evolved more than females. The female inferiority doctrine is
an excellent example of the armchair logic that has often been more important in
establishing evolutionary theory than fossil and other empirical evidence.

Introduction

The central mechanism of Darwinism is natural selection of the fittest, requiring
differences in organisms from which nature can select. As a result of natural selection,
inferior organisms are more likely to become extinct, and the superior groups are
more likely to thrive and leave a greater number of offspring.1

The biological racism of late 19th century Darwinism is now both well
documented and widely publicized. Especially influential in the development of biological
racism was the theory of eugenics developed by Charles Darwin’s cousin, Sir
Francis Galton.2,3

Less widely known is that many evolutionists, including Darwin, taught that women
were biologically and intellectually inferior to men. The intelligence gap that
Darwinists believed existed between males and females was not minor, but of a level
that caused some evolutionists to classify the sexes as two distinct psychological
species, males as homo frontalis and females as homo parietalis.4 Darwin himself concluded that the
differences between male and female humans were so enormous that he was amazed that
‘such different beings belong to the same species’ and he was surprised
that ‘even greater differences still had not been evolved.’5

Sexual selection was at the core of evolution, and female inferiority was its major
proof and its chief witness. Darwin concluded that males were like animal breeders,
shaping women to their liking by sexual selection.6
In contrast, war pruned weaker men, allowing only the strong to come home and reproduce.
Men were also the hunting specialists, an activity that pruned weaker men. Women
by contrast, ‘specialized in the “gathering” part of the primitive
economy.’7

Male superiority was so critical for evolution that George stated:

‘The male rivalry component of sexual selection was “the key,”
Darwin believed, to the evolution of man: of all the causes which have led to the
differences … between the races of man … sexual selection has been
the most efficient.’ 8

Natural selection struggles existed between groups, but were ‘even more intense
among members of the same species, which have similar needs and rely upon the same
territory to provide them with food and mates.’9
For years, evolution theorists commonly taught that the intense struggle for mates
within the same species was a major factor in producing male superiority.

Darwin’s ideas, as elucidated in his writings, had a major impact on society
and science. Richards concluded that Darwin’s views about women followed from
evolutionary theory, ‘thereby nourishing several generations of scientific
sexism.’10 Morgan added that
Darwin inspired scientists to use biology, ethnology and primatology to support
the theories of women’s ‘manifestly inferior and irreversibly subordinate’
status.11

The reasons justifying the belief in the biological inferiority of women are complex,
but Darwinism was a major factor, especially Darwin’s natural and sexual selection
ideas. The extent of the doctrine’s effect can be gauged by the fact that
the inferiority-of-women conclusion has heavily influenced theorists from Sigmund
Freud to Havelock Ellis, who have had a major role in shaping our generation.12 As eloquently argued by Durant, both racism and sexism
were central to evolution:

‘Darwin introduced his discussion of psychology in the Descent by
reasserting his commitment to the principle of continuity … [and] …
Darwin rested his case upon a judicious blend of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic
arguments. Savages, who were said to possess smaller brains and more prehensile
limbs than the higher races, and whose lives were said to be dominated more by instinct
and less by reason … were placed in an intermediate position between nature
and man; and Darwin extended this placement by analogy to include not only children
and congenital idiots but also women, some of whose powers of intuition, of rapid
perception, and perhaps of imitation were “characteristic of the lower races,
and therefore of a past and lower state of civilization”’ (Descent1871:326–327).13

Darwin’s personal life

Darwin’s theory may have reflected his personal attitudes toward women and
non-Caucasian races. When Darwin was concerned that his son Erasmus might marry
a young lady named Martineau, he wrote that if Erasmus married her he would not
be:

‘… much better than her “nigger.”—Imagine poor Erasmus
a nigger to so philosophical and energetic a lady … .Martineau had just returned
from … America, and was full of married women’s property rights …
. Perfect equality of rights is part of her doctrine … . We must pray for
our poor “nigger” … Martineau didn’t become a Darwin.’14

Among the more telling indications of Darwin’s attitudes toward women were
the statements he penned as a young man, which listed what he saw as the advantages
of marriage, including children and a

‘… constant companion, (friend in old age) who will feel interested
in one, object to be beloved and played with—better than a dog anyhow—Home,
and someone to take care of house—Charms of music and female chit-chat.These
things good for one’s health (emphasis mine).’ 15

Conflicts that Darwin perceived marriage would cause him included: ‘how should
I manage all my business if I were obligated to go every day walking with my wife—Eheu!’
He added that as a married man he would be a ‘poor slave … worse than
a negro’ but then reminisced that ‘One cannot live this solitary life,
with groggy old age, friendless and cold and childless staring one in one’s
face … .’ Darwin concluded his evaluation on the philosophical note:
‘There is many a happy slave’ and shortly thereafter, in 1839, he married
his cousin, Emma Wedgewood.16

To Brent, Darwin’s comments revealed a low opinion of women: ‘It would
be hard to conceive of a more self-indulgent, almost contemptuous, view of the subservience
of women to men.’17 Richards’
analysis of Darwin’s thoughts was as follows:

‘From the onset he [Darwin] embarked on the married state with clearly defined
opinions on women’s intellectual inferiority and her subservient status. A
wife did not aspire to be her husband’s intellectual companion, but rather
to amuse his leisure hours … . … and look after his person and his
house, freeing and refreshing him for more important things. These views are encapsulated
in the notes the then young and ambitious naturalist jotted not long before he found
his “nice soft wife on a sofa” … (although throughout their life
together it was Charles who monopolized the sofa, not Emma).’18

The major intellectual justification Darwin offered for his conclusions about female
inferiority was found in The Descent of Man. In this work, Darwin argued
that the ‘adult female’ in most species resembled the young
of both sexes, and also that ‘males are more evolutionarily advanced than
females.’19 Since female evolution
progressed slower then male evolution, a woman was ‘in essence, a stunted
man.’20 This view of women
rapidly spread to Darwin’s scientific and academic contemporaries.

Darwin’s contemporary anthropologist, Allan McGrigor, concluded that women
are less evolved than men and ‘… physically, mentally and morally,
woman is a kind of adult child … it is doubtful if women have contributed
one profound original idea of the slightest permanent value to the world.’21Carl Vogt, professor
of natural history at the University of Geneva, also accepted many of ‘the
conclusions of England’s great modern naturalist, Charles Darwin.’

Vogt argued that ‘the child, the female, and the senile White’ all had
the intellectual features and personality of the ‘grown up Negro,’ and
that in intellect and personality the female was similar to both infants and the
‘lower’ races.22 Vogt
concluded that human females were closer to the lower animals than males and had
‘a greater’ resemblance to apes than men.23
He believed that the gap between males and females became greater as civilizations
progressed, and was greatest in the advanced societies of Europe.24 Darwin was ‘impressed by Vogt’s work and
proud to number him among his advocates.’25

Sexual selection

Darwin taught that the differences between men and women were due partly, or even
largely, to sexual selection. A male must prove himself physically and intellectually
superior to other males in the competition for females to pass his genes on, whereas
a woman must only be superior in sexual attraction. Darwin also concluded that ‘sexual
selection depended on two different intraspecific activities: the male struggle
with males for possession of females; and female choice of a mate.’26 In Darwin’s words, evolution depended on ‘a
struggle of individuals of one sex, generally males, for the possession of the other
sex.’27

To support this conclusion, Darwin used the example of Australian ‘savage’
women who were the ‘constant cause of war both between members of the same
tribe and distinct tribes,’ producing sexual selection due to sexual competition.28 Darwin also cited the North
American Indian custom, which required the men to wrestle male competitors in order
to retain their wives, to support his conclusion that ‘the strongest party
always carries off the prize.’29
Darwin concluded that as a result, a weaker man was ‘seldom permitted to keep
a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice.’29

Darwin used other examples to illustrate the evolutionary forces which he believed
produced men of superior physical and intellectual strength on the one hand, and
sexually coy, docile women on the other. Since humans evolved from animals, and
‘no one disputes that the bull differs in disposition from the cow, the wild-boar
from the sow, the stallion from the mare, and, as is well known to the keepers of
menageries, the males of the larger apes from the females,’ Darwin argued
similar differences existed among humans.30
Consequently, the result was that man is ‘more courageous, pugnacious and
energetic than woman, and has more inventive genius.’31

Throughout his life, Darwin held these male supremacist views, which he
believed were a critical expectation of evolution.32
Darwin stated shortly before his death that he agreed with Galton’s conclusion
that ‘education and environment produce only a small effect’ on the
mind of most women because ‘most of our qualities are innate.’33 In short, Darwin believed, as do some sociobiologists
today, that biology rather than the environment was the primary source of behaviour,
morals and all mental qualities.34
Obviously, Darwin almost totally ignored the critical influence of culture, family
environment, constraining social roles, and the fact that, in Darwin’s day,
relatively few occupational and intellectual opportunities existed for women.35

Darwin attributed most female traits to male sexual selection. Traits he concluded
were due to sexual selection included human torso-shape, limb hairlessness and the
numerous other secondary sexual characteristics that differentiate humans from all
other animals. What remained unanswered was why males or females would select certain
traits in a mate when they had been successfully mating with hair covered mates
for aeons, and no non-human primate preferred these human traits? In this
case Darwin ‘looked for a single cause to explain all the facts.’36 If sexual selection caused the development of a male
beard and its lack on females, why do women often prefer clean-shaven males? Obviously,
cultural norms were critical in determining what was considered sexually attractive,
and these standards change, precluding the long-term sexual selection required to
biologically develop them.37,38

Proponents of this argument for women’s inferiority used evidence such as
the fact that a higher percentage of both the mentally deficient and mentally
gifted were males. They reasoned that since selection operated to a greater degree
on men, the weaker males would be more rigorously eliminated than weaker females,
raising the level of males. The critics argued that sex-linked diseases, as well
as social factors, were major influences in producing the higher number of males
judged feebleminded. Furthermore, the weaker females would be preserved by the almost
universal norms that protected them.

A major reason so few women were defined as eminent was because their social role
often confined them to housekeeping and child rearing. Also, constraints on the
education and employment of women, by both law and custom, rendered comparisons
between males and females of little value in determining innate abilities. Consequently,
measures of intelligence, feeblemindedness, eminence, and occupational success should
not have been related to biology without factoring out these critical factors.

The arguments for women’s inferiority, which once seemed well supported (and
consequently were accepted by most theorists), were later shown to be invalid as
illustrated by the changes in western society that occurred in the last generation.39 Hollingworth’s103 1914 work was especially important in discrediting
the variability hypothesis. She found that the female role as homemaker enabled
feebleminded women to better survive outside an institutional setting,
and this is why institutional surveys located fewer female inmates.

The influence of Darwin on society

The theory of the natural and sexual selection origin of both the body and mind
had major consequences on society soon after Darwin completed his first major work
on evolution in 1859. In Shields’ words, ‘the leitmotiv of evolutionary
theory as it came to be applied to the social sciences was the evolutionary supremacy
of the Caucasian male.’40

One of the then leading evolutionists, Joseph LeConte, even concluded that differences
between male and female resulting from organic evolution must also apply to distinct
societal roles for each sex.41
Consequently, LeConte opposed women’s suffrage because evolution made women
‘incapable of dealing rationally with political and other problems which required
emotional detachment and clear logic.’42

Their innate belief in the inferiority of females was strongly supported by biological
determinism and the primacy of nature over nurture doctrine. After reviewing the
once widely accepted tabula rasa theory, in which the environment was taught to
be responsible for personality, Fisher noted that Darwinism caused a radical change
in society:

‘… the year in which Darwin finished the first unpublished version
of his theory of natural selection [1842], Herbert Spencer began to publish essays
on human nature. Spencer was a British political philosopher and social scientist
who believed that human social order was the result of evolution. The mechanism
by which social order arose was “survival of the fittest,” a term he,
not Darwin, introduced. In 1850, Spencer wrote “Social Statistics,”
a treatise in which he … opposed welfare systems, compulsory sanitation,
free public schools, mandatory vaccinations, and any form of “poor law.”
Why? Because social order had evolved by survival of the fittest. The rich were
rich because they were more fit; certain nations dominated others because these
peoples were naturally superior; certain racial types subjugated others because
they were smarter. Evolution, another word he popularized, had produced superior
classes, nations, and races.’43

Fisher added that the early evolutionist’s teaching included not only ideas
of superior race but also superior sex; conclusions that the male sex dominated
and controlled females due to evolution. Darwin taught that a major reason for male
superiority was that males fought and died to protect both themselves and their
females.44 As a consequence, males
were subjected to a greater selection pressure than females because they had to
fight for survival in such dangerous, male-orientated activities as war and hunting.

In the late 1800’s, the inferiority-of-women doctrine was taken for granted
by most scientists to be a major proof of evolution by natural selection. Gould
claimed that ‘almost all scientists’ then believed that Blacks, women,
and other groups were intellectually inferior, and biologically closer to the lower
animals.45 Nor were these scientists
simply repeating their cultural prejudices. They attempted to support their belief
of female inferiority with supposedly empirical research as well as evolutionary
speculation.

Female brain capacity believed inferior

One approach seized upon, to scientifically demonstrate that females were generally
inferior to males, was to prove that their brain capacity was smaller. Researchers
first endeavoured to demonstrate smaller female cranial capacity by skull measurements,
and then tried to prove that brain capacity was causally related to intelligence—a
far more difficult task.46 Darwin
justified this approach for proving female inferiority by explaining:

‘As the various mental faculties gradually developed themselves, the brain
would almost certainly become larger. … the large proportion which the size
of man’s brain bears to his body, compared to the same proportion in the gorilla
or orang, is closely connected with his higher mental powers … .…
that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the
development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the
skulls of savage and civilized races, of ancient and modern people, and by the analogy
of the whole vertebrate series.’47

One of the most eminent of the numerous early researchers who used craniology to
‘prove’ intellectual inferiority of women was Paul Broca (1824–1880),
a professor of surgery at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. He was a leader in the
development of physical anthropology as a science, and one of Europe’s most
esteemed anthropologists. In 1859, he founded the prestigious Anthropological Society.48 A major preoccupation of this
society was measuring various human traits, including skulls, to ‘delineate
human groups and assess their relative worth.’49
Broca concluded that in humans, the brain is larger in

‘… men than in women, in eminent men than in men of mediocre talent,
in superior races than in inferior races50
… Other things equal, there is a remarkable relationship between the development
of intelligence and the volume of the brain.’51

In an extensive review of Broca’s work, Gould concluded that Broca’s
conclusions only reflected ‘the shared assumptions of most successful white
males during his time—themselves on top … and women, Blacks, and poor
people below.’52 How did Broca
arrive at these conclusions? Gould responded that ‘his facts were reliable
… but they were gathered selectively and then manipulated unconsciously in
the service of prior conclusions.’ One would have been that women were intellectually
and otherwise demonstratively inferior to men as evolution predicted. Broca’s
own further research and the changing social climate later caused him to modify
his views, concluding that culture was more important than he had first assumed.53

A modern study by Van Valen, which Jensen concluded was the ‘most thorough
and methodologically sophisticated recent review of all the evidence relative to
human brain size and intelligence,’ found that the best estimate of the within-sex
correlation between brain size and I.Q. ‘may be as high as 0.3.’54,55 A correlation
of 0.3 accounts for only 9% of the variance between the sexes, a difference that
may be more evidence for test bias and culture than biological inferiority. Schlutershowed
that claimed racial and sexual differences in brain size ‘are accounted for
by a simple artifact of the statistical methods employed.’56

Overturning the inferiority-of-women doctrine

Although some contemporary critics of Darwin effectively argued against his conclusions,
the inferiority-of-women doctrine and the subordinate position of women was long
believed. Only in the 1970s was the doctrine increasingly scientifically investigated
as never before.57,58 Modern critics of Darwinism were often motivated by
the women’s movement to challenge especially Darwin’s conclusion that
evolution has produced males and females who were considerably different, and men
who ‘were superior to women both physically and mentally.’59 Their critiques demonstrated major flaws in the evidence
used to prove female inferiority and, as a result, identified fallacies in major
aspects of Darwinism itself.60 For
example, Fisher argued that the whole theory of natural selection was questionable,
and quoted Chomsky, who said that the process by which the human mind achieved its
present state of complexity was

‘a total mystery … . It is perfectly safe to attribute this development
to “natural selection,” so long as we realize that there is no substance
to this assertion, that it amounts to nothing more than a belief that there is some
naturalistic explanation for these phenomena.’
61

She also argued that modern genetic research has undermined several major aspects
of Darwin’s hypothesis—especially his sexual selection theory. In contrast
to the requirement for Darwinism, in reality, even if natural selection were to
operate differentially on males and females, males would pass on many of their superior
genes to both their sons and daughters because most ‘genes are not
inherited along sexual lines.’ Aside from the genes which are on the Y chromosome,
‘a male offspring receives genes from both mother and father.’62

Darwin and his contemporaries had little knowledge of genetics, but this did not
prevent them from making sweeping conclusions about evolution. Darwin even made
the claim that the characteristics acquired by sexual selection are usually confined
to one sex.63 Yet, Darwin elsewhere
recognized that women could ‘transmit most of their characteristics, including
some beauty, to their offspring of both sexes,’ a fact he ignored in much
of his writing.64 Darwin even claimed
that many traits, including genius and the higher powers of imagination and reason,
are ‘transmitted more fully to the male than to the female offspring.’65

The contribution of Darwin to sexism

Even though Darwin’s theory advanced biologically based racism and sexism,
some argue that he would not approve of, and could not be faulted for, the results
of his theory. Many researchers went far beyond Darwin. Darwin’s cousin, Galton,
for instance, concluded from his life-long study on the topic, that ‘women
tend in all their capacities to be inferior to men (emphasis mine).’66 Richards concluded that recent
studies emphasized ‘the central role played by economic and political factors
in the reception of evolutionary theory,’ but Darwinism also provided ‘the
intellectual underpinnings of imperialism, war, monopoly, capitalism, militant eugenics,
and racism and sexism,’ and therefore ‘Darwin’s own part in this
was not insignificant, as has been so often asserted.’67

After noting that Darwin believed that the now infamous social-Darwinist, Spencer,
was ‘by far the greatest living philosopher in England,’ Fisher concluded
that the evidence for the negative effects of evolutionary teaching on history were
unassailable:

‘Europeans were spreading out to Africa, Asia, and America, gobbling up land,
subduing the natives and even massacring them.But any guilt they harbored now vanished.Spencer’s
evolutionary theories vindicated them … . Darwin’s Origin of Species,
published in 1859, delivered the coup de grace. Not only racial, class, and national
differences but every single human emotion was the adaptive end product of evolution,
selection, and survival of the fittest.’
68

These Darwinian conclusions of biology about females

‘… squared with other mainstream scholarly conclusions of the day.
From anthropology to neurology, science had demonstrated that the female Victorian
virtues of passivity, domesticity, and greater morality ( … less sexual activity)
were rooted in female biology.’ 69

Consequently, many people concluded that: ‘evolutionary history has endowed
women with domestic and nurturing genes and men with professional ones.’70

The conclusion of the evolutionary inferiority of women is so ingrained in biology
that Morgan concludes that researchers tended to avoid ‘the whole subject
of biology and origins,’ hoping that this embarrassing history will be ignored
and scientists can ‘concentrate on ensuring that in the future things will
be different.’71 Even evolutionary
women scientists largely ignore the Darwinian inferiority theory.72,73

Morgan stresses that we simply cannot ignore evolutionary biology because the belief
of the ‘jungle heritage and the evolution of man as a hunting carnivore has
taken root in man’s mind as firmly as Genesis ever did.’ Males have
‘built a beautiful theoretical construction, with himself on top of it, buttressed
with a formidable array of scientifically authenticated facts.’ She argues
that these ‘facts’ must be reevaluated because scientists have ‘sometimes
gone astray’ due to prejudice and philosophical proscriptions.74 Morgan states that the prominent evolutionary view
of women as biologically inferior to men must still be challenged, even though scores
of researchers have adroitly overturned this Darwinian theory.

The influence of culture on the Darwinists’ view of women

Culture was of major importance in shaping Darwin’s theory.75 Victorian middle-class views about men were blatant
in The Descent of Man and other evolutionists’ writings. The Darwinian
concept of male superiority served to increase the secularization of society, and
made more palatable the acceptance of the evolutionary naturalist view that humans
were created by natural law rather than by divine direction.76 Naturalism was also critically important in developing
the women-inferiority doctrine, as emphasized by Richards:

‘Darwin’s consideration of human sexual differences in The Descent
was not motivated by the contemporary wave of anti-feminism … but was central
to his naturalistic explanation of human evolution. It was his theoretically directed
contention that human mental and moral characteristics had arisen by natural evolutionary
processes which predisposed him to ground these characteristics in nature rather
than nurture—to insist on the biological basis of mental and moral differences
… .’ 77

A major method used to attack the evolutionary conclusion of female inferiority
was to critique the evidence for Darwinism itself. Fisher, for example, noted that
it was difficult to postulate theories about human origins on the actual brain organization

‘… of our presumed fossil ancestors, with only a few limestone impregnated
skulls—most of them bashed, shattered, and otherwise altered by the passage
of millions of years … [and to arrive at any valid conclusions on the basis
of this] evidence, would seem to be astronomical.’ 78

Hubbard added that ‘Darwin’s sexual stereotypes’ were still commonly
found

‘… in the contemporary literature on human evolution. This is a field
in which facts are few and specimens are separated by hundreds of thousands of years,
so that maximum leeway exists for investigator bias.’ 79

She then discussed our ‘overwhelming ignorance’ about human evolution
and the fact that much which is currently accepted is pure speculation. Many past
attempts to disprove the evolutionary view that women were intellectually inferior,
similarly attacked the core of evolutionary theory itself. A belief in female inferiority
is inexorably bound up with human group inferiority, which must first exist for
natural selection to operate. Evaluations of the female inferiority theory have
produced incisive, well-reasoned critiques of both sexual and natural selection
and also Darwinism as a whole.80

Evolution can be used to argue for male superiority, but it can also be used to
build a case for the opposite. The evolutionary evidence leaves so many areas for
‘individual interpretation’ that some feminist authors, and others,
have read the data as proving the evolutionary superiority of women by
using ‘the same evolutionary story to draw precisely the opposite conclusion.’81 One notable, early example is
Montagu’s classic 1952 book, The Natural Superiority of Women.Some
female biologists have even argued for a gynaecocentric theory of evolution,
concluding that women are the trunk of evolution history, and men are but a branch,
a grafted scion.82 Others have tried
to integrate reformed ‘Darwinist evolutionary “knowledge” with
contemporary feminist ideals.’83

Hapgood even concludes that evolution demonstrates that males exist to serve females,
arguing that ‘masculinity did not evolve in a vacuum’ but because it
was selected. He notes many animal species live without males, and the fact that
they do live genderlessly or sexlessly shows that ‘males are unnecessary’
in certain environments.84 It is
the woman that reproduces, and evolution teaches that survival is important only
to the degree that it promotes reproduction. So Hapgood argues that evolution theory
should conclude that males evolved only to serve females in all aspects of child
bearing and nurturing. This includes both to ensure that the female becomes pregnant
and that her progeny are taken care of.

Another revisionist theory is that women are not only superior, but society was
once primarily matriarchal. These revisionists argue that patriarchal domination
was caused by factors that occurred relatively recently.85 Of course, the theories that postulate the evolutionary
inferiority of males suffer from many of the same problems as those that postulate
women’s inferiority.

The use of Darwinism to justify behaviour in conflict with Christianity

Some argue that many of the views Darwin developed should be perpetuated again,
to produce a moral system based on the theory of evolution.86 For example, Ford concluded that the idea of eliminating
sexism is erroneous:

‘… the much-attacked gender differentiation we see in our societies
is actually … a necessary consequence of the constraints exerted by our evolution.
There are clear factors which really do make men the more aggressive sex, for instance
… .’ 87

After concluding that natural selection resulted in female inferiority, it was often
implied that what natural selection produced was natural, and thus proper. It at
least gave a ‘certain dignity’ to behaviours that we might ‘otherwise
consider aberrant or animalistic.’ 88
For example, evolutionary success was defined as leaving more offspring, and consequently
promiscuity in human males was a selected trait.

This explanation is used to justify both male promiscuity and irresponsibility,
and argues that trying to change ‘nature’s grand design’ is futile.89 Fox even argues that the high
pregnancy rate among unmarried teenage girls today is due to our ‘evolutionary
legacy,’ which ‘drives’ young girls to get pregnant.90 Consequently, the authors conclude that cultural and
religious prohibitions against unmarried teen pregnancy are doomed to fail.

Eberhard notes that the physical aggressiveness of males is justified by sexual
selection, and that: ‘males are more aggressive than females in the sexual
activities preceding mating (discussed at length by Darwin 1871 and confirmed many
times since …).’91
Further, the conclusion ‘now widely accepted … that males of most species
are less selective and coy in courtship because they make smaller investments in
offspring’ is used to justify male sexual promiscuity.92 Male promiscuity is, in other words, genetically determined
and thus is natural or normal because ‘males profit, evolutionarily speaking,
from frequent mating, and females do not.’ The more females a male mates with,
the more offspring he produces, whereas a female needs to mate only with one male
to become pregnant.93 Evolution
can progress only if females select the fittest male as predicted by Darwin’s
theory of sexual selection. Males for this reason have ‘an undiscriminating
eagerness’ to mate whereas females have ‘a discriminating passivity.’93

Conclusions and implications

The Darwinian conclusion that women are inferior has had major unfortunate social
consequences. Darwin hypothesized that sexual selection was important in evolution,
and along with the data he and his followers gathered to support their inferiority-of-women
view, it provided a major support for natural selection.94 Therefore, the disproof of women’s inferiority
means that a major mechanism that was originally hypothesized to account for evolutionary
advancement is wrong. Today, radically different conclusions are accepted about
the intelligence of women, despite using data more complete but similar to that
used by Darwin to develop his theory. This vividly demonstrates how important both
preconceived ideas and theory are in interpreting data. The women’s evolutionary
inferiority conclusion developed partly because:

‘Measurement was glorified as the essential basis of science: both anatomists
and psychologists wanted above everything else to be “scientific,” …
. Earlier psychological theory had been concerned with those mental operations common
to the human race: the men of the nineteenth century were more concerned to describe
human differences.’ 95

These human differences were not researched to understand and help society but to
justify a theory postulated to support both naturalism and a specific set of social
beliefs. The implications of Darwinism cannot be ignored today because the results
of this belief were tragic, especially in the area of racism:

‘… it makes for poor history of science to ignore the role of such
baggage in Darwin’s science. The time-worn image of the detached and objective
observer and theoretician of Down House, remote from the social and political concerns
of his fellow Victorians who misappropriated his scientific concepts to rationalize
their imperialism, laissez-faire economics, racism and sexism, must now give way
before the emerging historical man, whose writings were in many ways so congruent
with his social and cultural milieu.’ 96

Hubbard went further and charged Darwin guilty of ‘blatant sexism.’
She placed a major responsibility for scientific sexism, and its mate social Darwinism,
squarely at Darwin’s door.97
Advancing knowledge has shown many of Darwin’s ideas were not only wrong but
also harmful. Many still adversely affect society today. Hubbard concluded that
Darwin ‘provided the theoretical framework within which anthropologists and
biologists have ever since been able to endorse the social inequality of the sexes.’98 Consequently, ‘it is important
to expose Darwin’s androcentricism, and not only for historical reasons, but
because it remains an integral and unquestioned part of contemporary biological
theories.’99

Male superiority is critical for evolution. George states that:

‘… the male rivalry component of sexual selection was the key, Darwin
believed, to the evolution of man; of all the causes which have led to the differences
in external appearance between the races of man, and to a certain extent between
man and the lower animals, sexual selection has been the most efficient.’
100

A critical reason for Darwin’s conclusion was his rejection of the biblical
account, which taught that man and woman were specific creations of God, made not
to dominate but to complement each other. Darwin believed the human races ‘were
the equivalent of the varieties of plants and animals which formed the materials
of evolution in the organic world generally,’ and the means that formed the
sexes and races were the same struggles that Darwin concluded animals underwent
to both survive and mate.101 Having
disregarded the biblical view, Darwin needed to replace it with another one, and
the one he selected—the struggle of males for possession of females and food—resulted
in males competing against other males. He concluded that evolution favoured the
most vigorous and sexually aggressive males and caused these traits to be selected
because those with these traits usually left more progeny.102

Darwin’s theory of female inferiority was not the result of personal conflicts
with women but from his efforts to explain evolution without an intelligent creator.
In general, a person’s attitude towards the opposite sex results from poor
experiences with that sex. From the available information, this does not appear
to have been the situation in Darwin’s case. His marriage was exemplary. The
only major difference between Darwin and his wife was in the area of religion, and
this caused only minor problems: their devotion to each other is classic in the
history of famous people. Further, as far as is known, he had an excellent relationship
with all of the other women in his life: his mother and his daughters. Much of Darwin’s
hostility to religion and God is attributed to the death of his mother when he was
young and to the death of his oldest daughter in 1851, at the age of ten.

Summary

The Christian teaching of the equality of the sexes before God (Gal.
3:28), and the lack of support for the female biological inferiority position,
is in considerable contrast to the conclusions derived by evolutionary biology in
the middle and late 1800s. In my judgment, the history of these teachings is a clear
illustration of the negative impact of social Darwinism.

Stein, G.J., Biological Science and the Roots of Nazism, American
Scientists76:50–58, Jan–Feb 1988. Return
to text.

Love, R., Darwinism and Feminism: The ‘Women Question’
in the Life and Work of Olive Schreiner and Charlotte Perkins Gilman; in: Oldroyd
and Langham, The Wider Domain of Evolutionary Thought, D. Reidel, Holland,pp. 113–131, 1983. Return to text.

Hollingsworth, L.S., Variability as related to sex differences
in achievement, American Journal of Sociology 19:510–530,
1914. Return to text.

Refuting Evolution has sold over 500,000 copies! Impressive? But Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion has sold 8.5 million copies. Please support CMI so we can get more of this information out. Support this site